Business card
In the late 20th century, technological advances drove changes in style, and today a professional business card will often include one or more aspects of striking visual design.
Generally, business cards are printed on stock that is 350 g/m2 (density), 45 kg (100 lb) (weight), or 12 pt (thickness).
The advent of personal laser and inkjet printers made it possible for people to print business cards at home, using specially designed pre-cut stock.
Some companies have gone so far as to trademark their spot colors (examples are UPS brown, Owens-Corning pink, and Cadbury's purple).
To simulate the effect of printing with engraved plates, a less-expensive process called thermography was developed that uses the application of a plastic powder, which adheres to the wet ink.
Spot colors should be used for simple cards with line art or non-black type that is smaller than 5 points.
Business cards can also be printed with a digital copier, which uses toner fused onto the surface of the card; however, many modern printing firms instead utilise high end "Digital Presses," now distinct from office copiers, which range from light production units such as the Bizhub 5500 from Konica Minolta, to state of the art units such as the latest HP Indigo Digital Presses.
Available in both sheet-fed and web-fed models, many modern digital presses can emulate Pantone spot colors, print in up to seven colours in one pass, and some even contain embedded spectrophotometers and air-assisted feeding systems.
Meishi may also contain a QR code to provide contact details in a machine-readable form,[8] but this has not yet become a widespread practice.
[10] When meishi are being exchanged between parties with different status, such as between the president of a company and someone in middle management, it is proper that the person of lower status extend his or her business card in such a way that it is underneath or below the meishi being extended by the person in a higher position.
Meishi should be kept in a smart leather case where they will not become warm or worn, which are both considered a sign of disrespect or thoughtlessness.
If several people are involved in the meeting and one receives several meishi, the one with the highest rank is kept on the leather case, and the others beside it, on the table.
Actions such as folding the card in half, or placing the presenter's meishi in one's back pocket, are regarded as insults.
[12] Various technological advances made Compact Disc "business cards" possible, which could hold about 35 to 100 MB of data.
CD business cards are designed to fit within the 80 mm tray of a computer's CD-ROM drive.
Despite the ability to include dynamic presentations and a great deal of data, these discs were never in common use as business cards, though they are still available.
With handheld computers and smartphones becoming more ubiquitous, business card data is increasingly exchanged electronically via direct wireless connections (e.g. infra-red, Bluetooth, RFID), SMS, specialized apps (e.g. Bump)[13] or via a cloud service (e.g. licobo).
In addition to business card software, many printing firms now offer a web-to-print service, which allows the customer to choose from a selection of stock design templates, customize online using their own logos and imagery, select quantities, view pricing options and request them for delivery to home or business addresses.
